cooper was my first-born. he was born too early and didn't stay with me long enough. but he teaches me lessons every day. he has helped me be a better mom to mason. and a better person. this blog is a love-letter to mason, so that he will someday know what kind of impact his big brother had on his life. and on his mom's.

07 May, 2009

doing my best, little one

it's so scary being pregnant after pPROM. they call us PROM queens. a title i wish i could erase from my history. every little tinge of anything which most would consider normal alarms me and causes me to run through a chain of rationale in my head. for example, at about 9 weeks i felt something going on around my left ovary. most people would say it was the uterus stretching, but i was pretty concerned that it was a cyst or an enlarged ovary left over from the IVF cycle. it wasn't. it was normal. no cause for alarm. i am 17w, 3d today. i have had no spotting. everything about this pregnancy has been different. i am bigger than i was, i was bigger earlier, i have felt the ligaments stretching, i was nauseous, the gas was horrendous, no spotting in the second trimester, my hair is falling out, my gums have bled, and i am sure i could keep on going. but none of this has helped me to relax enough to let my loss go.

most moms worry and all babies are special, but there is nothing in the world like knowing that bad things -- i mean really bad things can happen. you tend to look at everything in a whole new light. with cooper, i was calm. and i was proud of that. i wasn't one of those spas-case moms who worried about everything. pregnancy was normal and women have been doing it successfully for millions of years. but i have managed to explore the darkness now and make it through. everything looks quite different on the other side.

i get aches and pains that are normal and i take myself back to my first pregnancy. i try to find as many differences as i can. i know all about positive thinking and the power of the mind over the body. i know that my negative thoughts can most certainly turn into reality. i try like hell to control them, but it's just so powerful. i want nothing more than to hold this baby in my arms and have him look up at me and his dad. cooper's eyes were still fused closed and i cried for his whole life. i want this baby to hear me laugh and to see me smile. in buddhism, we are taught to let go of attachments. that suffering is caused by desires. and that you can end that suffering if you stop wanting. but this is something that i cannot believe it is humanly possible not to want.

i was and am still fearful of the meds i was prescribed for my infections. i don't want any meds in my body with this baby. he had enough with the IVF cycle. so far, i have been able to avoid putting anything unnatural into my body (aside from the random dorito that i may steal from one of my students). but i did it. i took something that i know will make it to my baby. i hate that. i absolutely hate it. but in the end, the risk is too big to take. and today, after consulting with my midwife, i finally used the suppository. it is the same script i had used the night before my water broke. it's fucking terrifying. as i pushed on that little plunger, i was literally shaking and holding my breath with fear. but i know that realistically, there is no connection. cooper was born because there was something wrong in my body that forced him out too early.

maybe he was meant to come early. i have really come to believe that. and most people would cringe to hear me say that i am actually thankful that i was only able to be cooper's mommy here on earth for a short time. i have learned so much from him. this pregnancy, though often full of fear, has been so different. i see everything in a new light -- the good and the bad. this little soul who has chosen us like his brother did before him will have a completely different experience than we had planned for his brother. maybe that is part of cooper's purpose. this little one will be brought into the world in a way that josh and i could never have imagined and didn't even know existed. his life will begin in a place of comfort with only love and safety to greet him. that's just another lesson learned from little cooper. none of these experiences that i have written about would have occurred without cooper's guidance. i believe that in some way, he, or even we, planned all of this.